Viking helmets. Broad swords. Fur cloaks. There’s a lot of fantastical cosplay going on at Jeris Johnson’s shows these days. That’s kind of a given — the metal-spiked pop-hybridist’s recent Dragonborn album is an energetic epic involving mythical beasts, medieval melodies and high-flying riffs. Accordingly, the fans who showed up to the rising musician’s first headline tour this fall were heading into venues like they were ready for battle.
“Obviously, this album was a pretty ginormous step in a specific direction for me,” Johnson explains of the fantasy elements he dialed up to 11 for Dragonborn. “And I was curious, like, ‘How many people are going to be dressing up at these shows, putting crazy Viking girl makeup on and the whole thing?’ It turns out it is a lot of people.”
Stefanie Moser
Johnson, himself, comes out onstage swinging a big blade he picked up from a blacksmith working out of Los Angeles’ Sword and the Stone shop, which also makes armor and other props for movies and TV. “It’s not sharp or anything,” he says when Revolver asks if he had to train to wield his weapon. “You just don’t shove it in anybody’s eye socket, that’s the main thing.”
You could say, however, that Dragonborn is the producer-performer’s sharpest collection yet.
Raised in Eugene, Oregon, Johnson grew up playing drums in bands before grabbing the mic as a rapper. His earliest solo work was rooted in triplet-spit trap-pop flavors, with the hype he built off various singles and EPs leading to collaborations with Bring Me the Horizon and touring with Korn. Earlier this year, he added a high-profile opening run on Falling in Reverse’s “The Popular Monstour II”.
It was Johnson’s 2021 single “My Sword”, however, that foretold his current fantastic path. The song features references to Arthurian legend and the dragons from videogame The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim; while taking on a rap approach, he likewise sang that he was going to bring back rock.
Released earlier this year, Dragonborn builds off the lore of “My Sword.” Sometimes, Johnson is using his guitar to chunk through power-metal allusions to folk ballad “Greensleeves” (“Siren Song”), while other times he’s bouncing raps off of Viking-style chants (“Welcome to Valhalla”). His music videos co-star CGI dragons. He invented his own mug-swinging, hip-swaying tavern dance for Celtic-crunching single “Here’s to the Years,” which he’s now seeing fans replicate out in the pit.
While he’s clearly having fun mixing up his love of heavy metal and high fantasy, Johnson says he used to keep a lot of this under wraps. Back in high school, listening to metal while marathoning rounds of Skyrim did not make him feel like one of the cool kids.
“In my teenage years — while I was listening to metal and being a nerd — it felt very much like I was ashamed of it. And so, this album was my chance to undo or rewrite the embarrassment I felt around being a nerdy metal kid, and to just be like, ‘Nah, fuck you. This is who I am. And it’s cool and I love it.’”
“I wish that more artists would try to not just be a couple dudes in skinny jeans being normal,” he adds while discussing the worlds-building flair of his live shows. “I want to see artists that are unusual, creative [and] different. [Artists] that break your brain in various ways to help you connect to different parts of yourself. That’s the beauty of an amazing artist… it’s the connection to the abstract. It’s the connection to something bigger than just driving traffic.”
While it’s not exactly a numbers game, there’s no question that the Dragonborn era has begun to build a legion for Johnson. He suggests his hero’s journey is only getting wilder from here: “If it was up to me, and if I had the money, I’d come out riding a fucking flaming dragon at all my shows. I want to get there. I want to go crazy.”
As his own legend continues to build, Johnson sat down with Revolver to discuss the fantasy-driven entertainment properties that inspired him.
Skyrim
Playing Skyrim is a gateway drug to fantasy. Obviously, I watched Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter growing up, but Skyrim was the first time I was like, “OK, I love this. I am into this thing. What else can I play? What else can I watch? What can I read? What else is in this world?” That spawned the love of [fantasy] in a lot of ways.
I love the story cliche of “the chosen one” or of feeling like you have a destiny. That’s so important to me. Was my life path from birth was always charted, and I’m supposed to be this artist that’s super famous? I don’t know if it’s real, but I believe it’s real. And because I believe it’s real, I think that it will become real. I just love that sense of importance and purpose.
And so, in Skyrim you are the “Dragonborn.” You are the chosen one, essentially, and you have to kill dragons and collect their souls. It’s a story that’s been told a million times, but I just love that theme of being born with a purpose and being born to do something bigger than yourself. That’s what I like the most about it, because that’s how I feel about my own life.
Game of Thrones
I did not watch Game of Thrones at its peak. I actually watched it when it was COVID time. That is one of the greatest shows of all time, if not the best. I read the books, too, and the books are incredible.
It’s a little bit more of gritty take on fantasy. It’s very human. There’s no good guys really, except for Jon Snow. Everybody’s very flawed and interesting, and it was so cool to see a ginormous show/book that really embraces the less-pretty parts of humanity. I’ve always found that interesting, just observing humans on a daily basis, and [seeing both] the beauty and the destruction of humanity. Those are both in there.
I think Game of Thrones is probably the only fantasy property that truly nails that on the fucking head. So yeah, that’s why I like that one so much.
Amon Amarth
It’s really cool when a band just has a fucking niche and never stops doing that. I can appreciate that so much, mainly because I don’t have the self-control to stick to one thing for 30 years of my life.
I was in high school — probably 15 years old or something — when I heard my first Amon Amarth song, “Twilight of the Thunder God.” I thought it was cool back then. Their videos were cool. I thought they were interesting.
Avenged Sevenfold
A lot of people have made the observation that Avenged Sevenfold are one of my biggest influences. They have a lot of fantasy and biblical themes in their music that I always thought was cool. I’ve always been drawn to the drama of big themes and concepts, and it just so happens that a lot of the bands that flirt with that stuff the most tend to write lyrics in these grand, biblical kind of story-liney ways.
I just loved them. I mean, they were my favorite band for pretty much my entire teenage life. And so it is no secret that I have taken a great inspiration, in terms of some of the riffs and the solos on Dragonborn. I credit them for being the first band that truly inspired me.
I started listening to Avenged Sevenfold when their self-titled album came out [in 2007], and then I went back to City of Evil. The Rev was my favorite drummer, and obviously [his death] was a big blow to the whole scene, because he’s the GOAT, in my opinion.
God of War
I first started working on Dragonborn‘s “Welcome to Valhalla” after I’d finished God of War: Ragnarok. The soundtrack to that game is sick, because it’s [full of] all these chants. And I was like, “Oh, it’d be crazy if I made a beat out of that shit.” I ended up hitting up the Wellermen, who are an a cappella vocal group — they’ve had a few massively viral TikTok sea shanties, essentially.
I had them track this these lyrics I wrote, and then they came back and I was like, “This is fucking insane and amazing”
The only song that could technically fit on Dragonborn from my old songs is “My Sword,” so I wanted to try to make a “My Sword 2.0,” to see if I could beat it. I still wanted there to be the hip-hop shit in there. Viking rap didn’t seem like it’d ever been done before, to my knowledge… so I thought it’d be cool.